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Amazon has today announced that its AutoRip service is live, which gives customers who buy a CD from the online retailer an MP3 version for free.

The AutoRip services will automatically add the MP3 version of the CD's tracks to the customer's Cloud Player, from which they can be streamed or downloaded. In essence, AutoRip gives you access to the digital copy without having to convert that CD via your PC.

An early reveal from Cnet pre-empted the announcement of the AutoRip service, but the details are now confirmed.

"What would you say if you bought music CDs from a company 15 years ago, and then 15 years later that company licensed the rights from the record companies to give you the MP3 versions of those CDs … and then to top it off, did that for you automatically and for free?" said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO.

"Well, starting today, it's available to all of our customers - past, present, and future - at no cost."

The AutoRip service will cover purchases back to 1998, delivering high-quality 256Kbps files to the customer's Amazon Cloud Player. Amazon also says that AutoRip music doesn't count against the Cloud Player storage limits.

There are initially 50,000 music albums covered by the AutoRip services, identified by the AutoRip logo, with Amazon adding more titles all the time.

There's no news on the service coming to the UK, we'll update as soon as we have confirmation.

UPDATE Amazon.co.uk has been in touch to confirm that this announcement is only for the US. Sad face.